


a shocking revelation

by Dresupi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Feelings, Jealousy, Moving In Together, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Molly, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Timeline What Timeline, and they were ROOMMATES, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 11:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16407587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi
Summary: In which Molly happens upon a late night talk show featuring Janine's tall tales of Sherlock's appetites, and the feelings come roaring back. Feelings she thought she didn't have any longer have suddenly resurfaced, and at the worst possible time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xidaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xidaer/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a short little ficlet on tumblr and now I've gone and made it a multichap with smut option.
> 
> Xidaer prompted: Sherlolly angst: Molly discovers Sherlock's relationship with Janine when she catches Janine on Late night TV show describing in great detail the detective's sexual prowess. There are FEELINGS at this.

Molly couldn’t say she was surprised. Well, not in the traditional sense, at any rate. She couldn’t exactly say she  _ wasn’t  _ surprised either.

When Janine’s lovely face appeared on her telly, Molly was  _ taken aback _ , certainly.

And when that gorgeous woman--that tall drink of everything Molly Hooper wasn’t--began to speak, well…

Janine didn’t pull any punches. She’d apparently promised the producers a tell-all, and by George, she was delivering.

Molly didn’t exactly hear all of everything the other woman said. The blood was rushing through her head at such an increased rate that all she could really hear was a dull roar. But that was nothing compared to the way her hands shook and the way her entire body felt like it was on fire.

She sat down hard upon her sofa and pressed her lips together, staring at the screen and trying to will herself to turn the blasted thing off.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not anymore. Not after she’d gotten over him.

And she was.  _ Over _ him. She really was. Sherlock wasn’t… he wasn’t… wasn’t more than a friend now. A close friend to be sure, but a  _ friend _ nonetheless.

However, if her thudding heart was of any indication, there were still some feelings to contend with.

She took several deep breaths, but her heart continued to beat, rather erratically now that she was noticing. It was…  _ bizarre _ . No discernable rhythm… three or four rapid beats and then back to normal.

_ Thump-thump-thump-THUMP _

_ Thump-THUMP-thump _

_ THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  _

**“MOLLY!”**

“Oh!” she stammered, startled by the revelation. Not a heart arrhythmia after all, simply someone knocking on her door. And rather loudly. So they likely had done for some time without her noticing. 

Oops.

She jumped to her feet and walked to the door, taking one more breath in a vain attempt to calm herself before reaching for the knob and pulling it open.

A rather large mass moved past her in a flurry of Belstaff, cigarette smoke, and some sort of cologne she’d never been able to pinpoint. It didn’t speak--the mass didn’t-- it simply moved through her apartment at a rapid pace.  If she was to venture a guess, she’d say the mass was checking the windows for brick sized holes or her closets for hidden attackers.

“Hello, Sherlock, please won’t you come in?” she deadpanned, expecting no response and not being disappointed. 

It was no matter, it gave her a few more seconds to compose herself. Something she knew she needn’t bother with because Sherlock would deduce every single issue save one.

She just hoped the one he’d miss would be the obvious rather than something else.

He swept out to the kitchen, filling a glass with water before returning to her side.

When he’d arrived in her living room, his long strides brought him close. His eyes narrowed infinitesimally, his lips pursed into a lovely pout, and Molly realized that for whatever reason, he was putting on a show for her. Because he could most assuredly deduce anything without his face revealing his intention. The subtle changes in his countenance were for her benefit.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, placing the glass of water upon one of her end tables.

“Nothing,” she said automatically, followed by a “What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes and took a seat on her sofa. The telly had gone to commercial, so as long as she could get to the remote and switch it off before the talk show returned from the break, she had half a chance of hiding the shocking return of her feelings from his detection.

“Your cheeks are flushed, but you look pale, indicating a rapid increase in heart rate accompanied by nausea. In short, panic. You’ve had a panic attack brought on by something in your flat… was it something in the kitchen? Or your phone perhaps? Did something trigger an unpleasant memory? I had offered to help you find a new flat, Molly. Something nearer to Bart’s and nearer to Baker Street, but you refused. Would you like me to renew those sentiments, or would you like to tell me what caused the attack?”

Her mouth felt dry, and when she attempted to speak, she only managed a cough. Sherlock turned, taking the glass of water and offering it to her.

She took a sip, forever impressed by this man who would never  _ ever _ be as impressed by her.

It was at that sodding moment that the talk show returned from the commercial break and Molly nearly threw the glass of water at Sherlock as she dove for the remote control, which was--of course, in his steady hand as he  _ didn’t _ turn off the telly, but rather, turned up the volume.

Three sentences in, he must have realized exactly what topics the show was covering because he paled and muted the volume in quick succession.

“Right,” he began, opening his mouth and closing it again as he realized that for once, he was speechless.

Molly, instead of speaking and embarrassing herself further, took a long slow sip of the water and allowed the cool liquid to slide down her throat before she even thought about responding.

“I wasn’t… looking for it,” she began. “It just… happened to be what was on telly…”

“Yes, well… surely you know that my former relationship with Ms. Hawkins was… it  _ wasn’t _ …” he trailed off, seemingly at a loss. “It was a farce, Molly.”

“I know,” she said softly. “You did it for access to Magnussen.”

“Yes, that’s all--”

“But you fooled her for a while, didn’t you?”

“She said she knew what sort of man I was.”

“But you  _ thought _ you were fooling her, didn’t you?” she countered, her voice taking on a high, shrill sound that she greatly disliked. “You thought you were fooling her, so you acted accordingly. You hugged her, and kissed her, and… and...”

“I didn’t shag her, Molly…” he said softly. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“Wasn’t asking anything,” she countered. “Merely inferring.”

“My mistake,” he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t, though.  Didn’t shag her.”

“You weren’t ‘on her every night, five times a night’?” she asked, glancing back towards the woman on telly.  The woman with thick, dark hair and full lips, wide eyes and a pretty face. The woman who looked good in sling-back heels and fancy dresses. “Because she tells a convincing story…”

“She worked in media,” Sherlock offered in way of explanation. “She knows how to spin a story. How to make up a story…”

“Clearly…” Molly said with a wet laugh, finishing off the glass of water and handing it back to him.  “Thank you. For that…” She started to stand, but Sherlock reached for her hand instead, tugging her back onto the sofa and into his awkward embrace.

“I’m truly sorry if her words hurt you, Molly…” he said softly. She could feel his hands smoothing up her back in a way that should have calmed her, but instead, it just made everything feel all the worse. Sherlock was able to mimic displays of affection, that was a given. If he was able to mimic those, he could surely mimic displays of comfort as well.

Molly stiffened in his arms before pulling away and standing up.  She had no pretense for standing, nowhere to go, but she had simply known she couldn’t accept his platitudes any longer.

“Why are you here, Sherlock?”

There was a long silence before he spoke. “I’m visiting a friend.”

“I’m not a friend,” she said coldly. “Why are you here?”

“You are, indeed, a friend, Molly Hooper,” he protested. “And I always strive to visit you at home on Wednesdays…” he said softly. “It is Wednesday. So I’m here. A bit later than I usually come, I’ll concede, but I’m here.”

She turned, squinting as she peered at his face, trying in vain to read something in his expression. “So you can check up on me?”

“Yes,” he said, the uncertainty clear in his tone. As if he knew he was walking into a trap, but the action was necessary.

“So you can make sure your little pathologist is alright and won’t be too knackered to assist you, should the need arise? I’m a human being, Sherlock. I don’t exist simply to make your life easier.”

“No, Molly,” he snapped. “You certainly do  _ not _ . As such, I only visit in order to make sure my friend is alright after the trauma she’s experienced due to her loyalty to  _ me _ . You’re correct about my selfishness, just not the reward I reap from coming here every week. I could do without you as a pathologist, I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. I feel  _ guilty _ about what happened here, and you won’t allow me to help you in any other way, so...” He trailed off, his arms falling down to his side. “Molly, I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

Neither did she.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here's chapter 2 already. Don't get used to this, my muse is a flighty, flighty bitch. 
> 
> (You could send me some lovely gifs on [tumblr](http://dresupi.tumblr.com/) to coax her along, if you wanted, however...)

“I hadn’t realized that you came over every Wednesday…” Molly said absently, drawing at the cigarette Sherlock had offered her. Her voice was croaky. Unshed tears and ciggie smoke making her sound very strange to her own ears.

She had her feet propped up on her coffee table, the telly still on and muted, the colors flashing in her periphery, but never forming discernable pictures. She didn’t know what was on, only that it was.

Sherlock exhaled, hesitating as his hand hovered over her knee before closing the distance and squeezing. His hesitation made her want to smile, but not enough to actually complete the task. Instead, she took another drag from the cigarette.

“I was trying to be what you needed,” he explained quietly.

“A Wednesday-night check-in is what you thought I needed?” she asked, slightly amused.

“I realize it sounds silly, and that it  _ is _ silly, but in my own stupid way, yes. I thought that you needed something stable. This flat contains tons of bad memories, wholly unconnected to Janine Hawkins, but you understand why the thought of her with me was enough to send you into a panic, don’t you?”

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for his sure-to-be stunning deduction.

“You’re suffering from a stress disorder. Made all the worse because you’re still living here in this flat where my sister almost--” He ended the sentence in a sharp inhale, but his meaning was clear. Even if he couldn’t say it.  “What you need--”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I’ll tell you what I need.”

“What?” he asked, his voice sounded at first like himself, short-tempered and bored, but something underneath felt different. A desperate lilt at the end that gave him away.

“An ashtray…” she answered quickly, looking at the ciggie in her hand.

“Oh… here.” He held out the glass she’d been drinking out of before, a scant inch of water remaining in the bottom that she flicked the ashes into, watching the gray bits swirl and clump before he set the glass down on the side table once more.  “Was that… was that all you needed, Molly?”

There it was again. That desperate lilt. That tremor in his voice that could be a foothold, if she so chose. She could dig in her toes and hold on tightly, slow her descent down the face of the mountain with his desperation as her tether.

She could very well reach across him, drop the lit cigarette into that water glass of swirling wet ashes and climb into his lap. Answer his question with kisses. With her hand down his trousers.

And he would likely give in to her. Give her what she wanted for fear of losing her.

But that wasn’t what she wanted at all.

What she wanted, was to  _ be _ wanted. By him. In every carnal, animalistic way that she wasn’t supposed to want. 

Love my mind, but respect my body. Bloody well sod it. She wanted his hands all over her. That’s what she wanted.

She wanted him to feel a fraction of what she felt when she thought about him and Janine together. She wanted his blood to boil in his veins and his heart to beat frantically in his chest as if it were trying to jump from his body altogether.

She wanted him gutted when she casually put him off. She wanted, for half a second to be able to gut him with words.

But none of those things were healthy ways to think about a person. And he was right, they weren’t the reason she was off. Well, perhaps  _ part  _ of a reason, but not the entire reason.

She knew that.  Dr. Molly Hooper wasn’t an idiot. Not by far.

And so, she took another pull from the cigarette, coughing at the deep burn in her lungs and wishing she hadn’t sullied that last swallow of water with ashes.

When she felt his hand upon her back, the heat burning her through her bathrobe, tears began to gather in her eyes.

“I don’t need anything else, Sherlock.”

“I could… stay until you’re ready for bed?” he offered, his hand still there on her back. An offer.

She shook her head. “No, no.  It’s late. I’m ready for bed already. I’ll likely just… go right to sleep after you leave.” It was a lie, she likely  _ wouldn’t _ sleep at all tonight.

“I could spend the night? On the couch?” he asked.

“You don’t like sleeping on sofas,” she said softly. “If you did that, you wouldn’t sleep. And I wouldn't sleep, because I’d know you’d be out here  _ not sleeping _ .”

“I won’t sleep at Baker Street either.”

“Don’t tell me that, Sherlock…” she pleaded.

“Could sleep in your bed…” he offered.

“I don’t much fancy a night on the couch myself.”

“With you,” he added.  “Could sleep in your bed  _ with _ you.”

She bit her bottom lip hard and shook her head no.  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” his voice had lowered, “Do you think I’d keep you awake? That’d I’d be bothering you with my insatiable libido? I do need sexual intercourse five times a night, after all, Molly.”

She hadn’t meant to laugh, but it was impossible not to. A ridiculous confession on Janine’s part, how had Molly ever thought-- it was absolutely ridiculous. “Sherlock, don’t…”

His smile was infectious. “Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve laughed in my presence?”

“Have I ever?” she joked, causing his smile to deepen.  It was as if a dam had broken, and the pressure was gone. True, everything was flooding now, but at least the goddamn pressure wasn’t a threat any longer.

The hand that was still on her knee moved lightning fast, grasping her hand tightly. “Come to Baker Street.”

“Sherlock, it’s late…”

“So? I came here and it was late.”

“You weren’t in your pyjamas.”

“I didn’t know I should have done. I’m woefully ham-fisted at social cues, Dr. Hooper. You know that. Don’t punish me for my ineptitude. Don’t punish  _ yourself _ . Come to Baker Street.”

She didn’t want to smile again, but she did, glancing down at their hands. “I shouldn’t.”

“Says who?”

“Says… probably everyone.”

“Fuck everyone.”

She laughed. “Not sure  _ that’s _ the advice you should be bandying about.”

He squeezed her hand. “My words  _ are _ sincere, Molly. I’m not simply trying to be nice. You know me. I’m not nice at all.  _ Come _ to Baker Street. There’s a spare room there. You won’t have to worry about my lack of sleep or yours because we’ll have our own space. John’s old room is still furnished.”

“It’s not a good idea,” she repeated her previous argument, knowing damn well that her resistance was crumbling.

“You’ve said that already. Not everything has to be a good idea in order for it to work out well. I could list any number of personal experiences to illustrate that fact.”

“Let me make sure I understand you. You are asking me to spend the night at Baker Street, in the hopes that it will magically fix the funk I’ve been in and assuage the guilt you feel for having told me you loved me in order to save me from being blown up?”

“No, Molly.  Don’t be ridiculous.  I’m asking you to move  _ house _ to Baker Street in order to magically fix the funk you’ve been in and to assuage my own guilt. Please don’t be tedious about this.”

“Sherlock…”

He sighed heavily. “ _ Fine _ , just the week then.”

“The week?!” she exclaimed. He’d only just asked her to move in forever, and now the week would suffice?

“Yes, the week. It will give me time to either find you another flat or convince you of the reasons you should remain.”

“I don’t need another flat.” This was her weakest argument yet, mostly because it was a lie. She  _ did _ need another flat, but that was beside the point.

“This one’s too small for your pay grade, and too far from Bart’s. And too far from me, if I’m being honest. Come, Molly. Pack your things.”

“Sherlock.”

“ _ Molly _ .”

“I’ll find another flat on my own.”

“If you were going to do that, you’d already have done. This is my way of helping you to move on with your life.”

“And your way of trying to keep your own guilt from killing you in your sleep,” she countered.

“Some of my reasons are selfish, Dr. Hooper, but I promise altruistic ones as well.”

“Your flat is full of dead body parts.”

“ _ Ah-ha _ , not since you ceased giving me specimens from the morgue.”

He had her there. “You’re a terrible flatmate.”

“As opposed to…” he glanced around. “No one?”

“I have Toby,” she said stiffly.

“That bugger’s still alive?” Sherlock sniffed and looked around the room. “I’d assumed that since he wasn’t clawing up my trouser legs, he’d shuffled off his mortal coil.”

“He’s grown used to you, which means he ignores you completely…” she said with an indignant sniff.

“Just as well, since he’ll be coming to Baker Street.”

“You’d let Toby live in your flat?” she asked, chuckling deeply. “Has hell frozen over?”

“No. I merely wish for you to understand the significance of my proposal.”

Her heart fluttered against her will at his choice of phrase. She sighed heavily, knowing she’d been bested. “Fine. But help me with Toby’s things…”

“How many things does a cat have?” Sherlock asked, wrinkling his nose and looking around.

“His litter box in the loo, for one.”

The wrinkles in his nose deepened. “Oh. I’d forgotten about that.”

“You  _ said _ Toby could come.”

“So I did… I’ll fetch his litter box if you fetch the feline.”

“And it’s only for the week,” she reiterated.

“Of course, of course,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “So you say.”

“So it  _ is _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sugar, sugar... it's what I live on... ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me some sugar if you want!


End file.
